RMST343

Pinocchio & Everything Else

Cross-listed with ITAL 333

Pinocchio’s statue in the town of Collodi

In this course we re-visit Pinocchio, the original educational story for children (the would-be Bildungsroman, if one will) authored in Italian by the Florentine Carlo Collodi (1881 and 1882-83), seeing it in the light of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s critical dictum «It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society». Along with it we also study a panoply of other modern classics from mostly (though not exclusively) Romance civs and lits which also – very diversely – examine the issue of how the individual and society can be (mis)aligned with each other.

The course is articulated in two parts. The first is devoted to reading and interpreting Collodi’s Pinocchio; the other, to everything else. However, to aim for a better synergy between the two components, we do not tackle the two concepts sequentially but in parallel.

Each week, a first item includes relevant topics or texts to be presented & discussed from mostly (though not exclusively) Romance civs and lits. These may range from the birth of the picaresque novel in Spain to the 19th-century French “novel of ambition”; or from the issue of compassion in Parzival to selfishness and/or happenstance in U.S. “rags-to-riches” narratives; or from Don Quixote’s “visionary” archetype to Oblomov’s multi-layered social superfluousness … This, with tweaks that may depend on students’ preferences based on their own spheres of interest and specialization.

Also each week, a second item follows pretty closely the Italian context – and, of course, text – of Collodi’s Pinocchio: nationalism in Italian history and cultural history, the birth (and nature) of modern Italian literature and identity, and more in this vein.

Italy’s nation-building blueprint since the early 1800s is here considered an exemplary small-scale case of one of today’s most burning issues on the global stage: How previously scattered and colonized peoples may successfully coalesce into a single-identity country in consequence of a deliberate political program, with all the positive and the problematic sides therein implied.

Learning Outcomes:

Our desired learning outcome is to develop the factual knowledge + the critical skills necessary to question, in a well-informed, articulate manner, the mainstream current approach (concept/precept) of adapting-fitting-bending individual behaviour to dominant standards of “social success” that are often destructive, and/or unethical, and/or alienating (commodifying), and/or – tragicomically – a lot more childish than the very child they purport to “train.”

Assignments and Evaluation:

• Draft of ideas for Midterm composition (10%)
• Midterm composition (20%)
• 2 x Drafts of ideas for Final composition (2 x 10% = 20%)
• Final composition (35%)
• Participation (15%, which covers both attendance and its quality)

Required readings:

• Giuseppe “Pinocchio” Collodi. I, Pinocchio, The True and Only One: Confessions of a Puppet Who Converterd from Matter to Soul. Vancouver: Finisterrae, 2022. Available on Amazon.ca in the Kindle Store (USD 5.oo). This text is presented and commented in class.
• Any edition of Carlo Collodi. Pinocchio: Adventures of a Puppet – any English translation (there are many), or any Italian edition of the 1883 text. (There are free web versions of both, as discussed in class).
• Further readings of literary classics (primary literature, secondary literature) involve texts available in the public domain – in practice, on the web – and are to be established as the need arises, in consequence of the discussion in class.

Prerequisite: None

Language of instruction: English

African and Caribbean Francophone Literatures

Ce cours invite les étudiants à découvrir les littératures antillaise et africaine d’expression française. Notre itinéraire transocéanique nous amène en Afrique de l’Ouest, en Haïti et en Algérie. La première partie du cours sera consacrée à une épopée africaine du Moyen Âge et sa représentation de la fondation de l’Empire du Mali. Ensuite, nous étudierons un roman qui se veut autant une critique du régime des Duvalier (1957-1986) que du colorisme en Haïti. La dernière partie du cours porte sur une nouvelle dont le fil conducteur est la guerre d’Algérie (1954-62). Quoique les œuvres littéraires se distinguent par leur genre littéraire, leur contexte historique et origine géographique, elles nous permettront d’explorer plusieurs thèmes récurrents parmi lesquels figurent la nation, le colonialisme, la religion, l’altérité, le racisme, le patriarcat et le langage. L’analyse du corpus éclairera également la question de la transposition d’un texte oral à l’écrit, les différents types de narration, les marqueurs génériques tout en présentant aux étudiants les concepts-clé de la théorie postcoloniale. Afin de mieux appréhender la littérature et les sociétés dont elle émane, le cours propose de convier d’autres artéfacts culturels tels que les documentaires, la peinture et la musique.

Prerequisites: One of FREN 321, FREN 328, FREN 329 and one of FREN 225, FREN 402.

Language of instruction: French

Theatre and Poetry of the Romance World

This course explores the theatrical and poetic production of the Romance World in all its breadth and diversity, from the Middle Ages to the 21^st century. A particular emphasis will be put on the early modern and the modernist periods, that is, the 16^th-17^th and the late 19^th and 20^th centuries. We will inquire into the close relationship—as well as the crucial differences—between poetry and theatre and ask, among others, the following questions: what forms does the poetic and theatrical production take as it travels across the continents that make up the Romance World? How is it interconnected? How does it unfold and change across centuries? What tools do we have (or can we develop) to historicize and appreciate the poetic and performative production of cultures and times detached from our own experience(s)? Why does theatre and poetry of the Romance World matter to us, and what can we learn from it? How are questions of gender, race, colonialism, and different power relations encapsulated in performative, poetic, and audiovisual documents from the Romance World? We will read and discuss, in English, classics as well as less-known authors, both male and female, who wrote in French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. You are welcome to read the texts in the original languages or in the English translation. Both are provided.

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Language of instruction: English

Introduction to Romance Language Cinema: Film Adaptation

The history of cinema entails countless literary adaptations. This course will offer a study of films that have been adapted from literary works in French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. We will explore cinematic productions based on visuality, sound, and text/context. We will have the opportunity to survey contexts for the development of Western Cinema, and to examine the variety of Romance World Cinema in diverse contexts. We will study general techniques of adaptation and film analyses in relation to global and social issues, identity, class, and gender. Questions to be examined: How does adaptation change genre? How does adaptation influence filmic form and language? How does cinema engage with canonical and obscure literature? What remains and what changes across artistic media?

Credit will be granted for only one of RMST 234 or RMST 305.

Primary film selection to be examined: 

• Federico Fellini – Nights of Cabiria (1957) – based on a short story by Fellini [1hr 49min]
• Luis Buñuel – Belle de Jour (1967) – based on Joseph Kessel’s novel [1hr 41min]
• Bernardo Bertolucci – The Conformist (1970) – based on Alberto Moravia’s novel [1hr 51min]
• Jean-Jacques Annaud – The Name of the Rose (1986) – based on Umberto Eco’s novel [2hr 10min]
• Stephen Frears – Dangerous Liaisons (1988) – based on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ novel [1hr 59min]
• Alfonso Arau – Like Water for Chocolate (1992) – based on Laura Esquivel’s novel [2hr 03min]
• Bille August- The House of the Spirits (1993) – based on Isabel Allende’s novel [2hr 25min]
• Guel Arraes – Lisbela and the Prisoner (2003) based on a play by Osman Lins [1hr 46min]
• Walter Salles – The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) based on the travel diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara [2hr 06min]
• Juan José Campanella – The Secret in their Eyes (2009) based on a novel by Eduardo Sacheri [2hr 09min]

Texts:

• Short passages from original texts will be available in English on Canvas.
• Selected theoretical texts will be available on Canvas.
• Films will be available streaming through Koerner Library. All foreign language films will be available with English subtitles.

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Language of instruction: English

Corps, Passions, Emotions : Le Théâtre Français et Francophone du XVIIe Siècle

Ce cours se propose d’étudier les différentes articulations théâtrales et performatives françaises et francophones du XVII^e siècle. Souvent associé au classicisme, aux concepts de bienséance et de vraisemblance ainsi qu’aux « trois unités » (unité de lieu, unité d’action, unité de temps), le théâtre français et francophone fut un moyen important pour la propagation de nouvelles idées (politiques, morales, coloniales, raciales, philosophiques, esthétiques, stylistiques, cosmologiques, médicales, etc.). La production théâtrale du XVII^e siècle fut impressionnante : elle ne consistait pas seulement en pièces « classiques » (comédies, tragédies), composées par les trois dramaturges les plus célèbres du siècle associés à « l’âge classique » — Corneille, Molière, Racine —, mais aussi en une variété de genres nouveaux (pastorales, tragicomédies, ballets, entrées royales, comédies-ballets et opéras), jouées dans de multiples lieux de théâtre non seulement en France, mais aussi dans le « Nouveau Monde » (tels le Canada et St. Domingue). Nous allons explorer l’impact de la Poétique d’Aristote sur le « théâtre classique » et l’importance de la commedia dell’arte pour la production théâtrale et visuelle (Jacques Callot, Maurice Sand) à travers les siècles ; nous allons étudier l’interaction du corps humain et des machines théâtrales sur la scène française et francophone. Les thèmes récurrents comprennent la question des genres (gender), les relations raciales, les représentations spatiales, les théories du théâtre (« La querelle du Cid », les traités sur le théâtre), les articulations des passions (Descartes) et les pratiques performatives et poétiques d’inclusion et d’exclusion, en particulier dans le contexte colonial de la Nouvelle France (Canada) et des Caraïbes.

Required readings: To be announced.

Prerequisite: One of FREN 321, FREN 328, FREN 329 and one of FREN 225, FREN 402.

Language of instruction: French